REINDEERS ARE MORE RELIABLE!

It is the end of the world. There are no roads there, only occasional crazies who drive on snow treks

REINDEERS ARE MORE RELIABLE!

Life in Chukotka is not much fun, but local people are really great. They don't waste much time complaining about their disastrous realities, and prefer by far to tell you one of their countless jokes about themselves.

Like this one:

There is this man driving a truck in the tundra.

Suddenly his engine stalls.

So he tries to repair it. A Chukchi passes by on a sleg drawn by reindeers and shouts:

— Hey, man! You give me a bottle of vodka, and I'll tell you three magic words.

— Go away!

Two days later, the Chukchi passes by again. The man still hasn't repaired his engine.

— You really don't want my three magic words,

or do you?

— O.K., there is your bottle, tell me.

— You need tractor!

HIGH RISK ZONE

We are in the middle of October, the sea is covered by ice and ships cannot enter the port anymore without the help of an icebreaker. Winter is still to come, but shops in Pevek don't carry any stock for the long hard season looming ahead, not even potatoes. At Chaunskaya power station, the chief of the local administration is facing a group of very angry women. «Look, a ship with a load of potatoes is due any day now», he tells them. «Great, I can't wait to see how much they will cost!» one of the women says. «If the price is the same as in the private shops, forget it!» The administration swears that the precious product will be sold at cost only, or almost. Women remain in doubt. «You won't manage. These potatoes will end up in the private shops. Better release them against food stamps, or allocate them to companies for distribution to staff.»

The same is happening everywhere in Chukotka. Before 1995, some 30 ships were usually retained to deliver stocks for the winter. In 1999, 18 ships were readied, but only 4 actually sailed. This year's navigation wasn't a great success either.

For several years on end, the same mistake is made over and over again: there are no ships to go to Chukotka in summer, and then when winter gets closer dangerous and expensive missions have to be mounted to avoid a disaster. Now that the whole system is faltering, Northern territories have become a high risk zone for the professional rescuers from the Ministry of National Emergencies — MNE. Over the last four years, every winter there were bad emergencies there. One of the districts of Chukotka was left without any food for winter, and MNE had to mobilize the Navy and to make a huge effort to save people in that freezing desert from starvation.

Local airlines have practically no more small aircrafts, which used to provide the only link between all those villages and towns scattered over hundreds of kilometers in the tundra.

On one of our trips, our helicopter landed by the sea. Those going to Beringovskiy disembarked. The pilot said: «We are leaving shortly, the sun will soon go down.» A local told: «Look, we've got fifty boys from the Army waiting to go home. What if two of them go with you? It won't take a minute.» We didn't have to wait. Those two boys came running a couple of minutes later. «I can't believe it!» said one of them when we were in the air. They were quite lucky: God knows how much longer the remaining forty eight had to wait for the next occasional flight.

A woman with a sick baby had been brought by helicopter from a distant village to the hospital in Bilibino. When the baby was back to normal, they spent almost a month waiting for the next flight home, as so many other villagers had done before them.

TO SEE THE NORTH AND DIE

That's what transports are like today in Chukotka.

Leonid Zamiyatin achieved the impossible: he went around the planet hitchhiking, via Chukotka and Alaska! In his diaries, he left interesting notes about the guys who criss cross the tundra in their vehicles.

«Drivers up there in the North are real daredevils, adventurers, cowboys of the road without the boots and guns. They are big and strong. Any man like this jumps easily out into the cold with just a shirt and a pair of slippers on. In his cabin, a cassette player is blasting and the extra-heater behind the seats maintains a good +40оC inside as against -40оC outside. No wonder they drive around in short sleeves, their windows down. They have no CBs. On the road, they have endless breakdowns and failures. In freezing temperatures, steel begins to crumble.

There is no permanent road going from the Republic of Yakutiya Sakha to Chukotka. In winter, occasional vehicles will follow traces left by others on a snow trek, and that's about it. Russia is mostly a wild country. But I was lucky, deep in the taiga I came across a convoy of five «Ural» trucks and a four by four «Niva» which were going to Chersky. So for the next ten days I had to sleep in this «Niva» packed to the brim with their kit. It was hot and uncomfortable. This was a really difficult part of the trip.

From Zyriyanka to Chersky, the road is on the ice of the Kolyma river. From there, I headed for Bilibino, site of the only nuclear power station beyond the Arctic Circle. And from there I went to Pevek. Hello, Chukotka!

I had spent 24 days crossing Yakutiya, and twice as many in Chukotka. It is the end of the world. I spent less time moving on the road than waiting for a vehicle to show up. There are no roads there, only occasional crazies who drive on snow treks. But I had wonderful impressions, the best of my life. First, nature was austere and beautiful. Second, people were amazing! Drivers never failed to help me.

I was told that after Pevek weather would not be that bad, so I left behind the real warm stuff: my down jacket and the Gore-Tex lined clothes. That was a real stupid thing to do! Winds were so strong there, and I felt so miserable.

From Pevek I moved with a team of drillers to Egvekinot, from where I wanted to go to Provideniya. There are flights between Provideniya and Nome in Alaska, and I was counting on it. But how do I go, there is nothing, not even a snow trek between Egvekinot and Provideniya. Somebody told me that in a month time the governor of Chukotka was going to visit Alaska, so I'd better go to Anadyr. My first priority was to get out of Egvekinot. There is a small airport there, and there were even some flights, but tickets cost a small fortune. I was lucky again. I started a conversation with some guys, they turned out to be the crew of a plane which was just about to leave, and we quickly became friends. «You really need to leave? Come with us!» they told me. I took my bag and we went out through a side door giving direct access to the airfield. There was nobody to check my ticket or passport, it was total freedom. As it turned out, I was going to fly on a cargo plane in the company of some local boss and a load of frozen meat.

They left the boss in the back and brought me into the front cabin where I got a seat. They explained to me about the instruments on the dashboard, and about what was below us on the ground. Turned out to be a fantastic flight. I was in Anadyr on March 28, and then I got stuck for four weeks. On April 21st, joining a team of dog sleggers and their animals from the international race «Nadejda», I flew to Provideniya. A group of Americans from Port Alsworth, a small village in Alaska, was there. They had flown in with kids from their village to see the place. I spoke to one of them, he looked at my Canadian visa, said O.K., and in five days me and the kids were on our way to Alaska. I had no problems at immigration control, they only checked my passport and let me go. By the look in their eyes I knew they thought I was crazy.

I crossed Alaska in nine days»

A few months after he had finished this long trip, Leonid Zamiyatin died.

INGENUITY OF THE POOR

Any traveller in Chukotka will certainly come across a few peculiar self-made vehicles, designed to ride on rough or wet lands. Whoever is familiar with this country without roads will easily understand why locals build their «wetlanders».

In the Soviet days, they were often put on display and even shown on national TV, in a popular program called «Things you can do yourself». Professor Nurbey GULIA was an expert contributing to the program, and he agreed to comment on the «wetlanders» in Chukotka.

— We did show vehicles of this type on several occasions. They had a light welded frame to which their creators added an engine and a wheel from a motor bike. They put air chambers from big truck wheels on self-made rims, covered them with tarpolin to protect the rubber from punctures, and attached them firmly with ropes. Their vehicle was then ready to go.

A vehicle like this is very easy to handle. There is almost no pressure in its big fat wheels, so it can go over flowers and not flatten them. It can even roll unharmed on nails or broken glass. You can imagine that marshland or snow are no problem at all, they are a «wetlander»'s natural environment. If it slides into an opening in ice, it will float, which is a big advantage compared to standard snow bikes which sink immediately. What's more, a «wetlander» is about as fast as any snow bike, but consumes less fuel and is much cheaper than the «Buran». It drives smoothly on its big tyres alone and does not need any suspension. Some of the «wetlanders» have collapsable frames which allow them to drive into very sharp corners. On the average, they are surprisingly reliable. We monitored three races across the tundra, including one from Salekhard to Dikson, which was 2,500 km long, and «wetlanders» never failed! I think that this type of all terrain vehicles on big wheels could have a good market, especially in the vast areas of our country where deep snow and marshlands are a norm. Whoever manages to start up their production will do a lot of good to many people, and to himself too!

For the moment, this is only a dream. Reality is so much different. If and when no more fuel is shipped to Chukotka and all local vehicles break down completely, we shall witness there the return of a primeval way of life. Luckily enough, Natives haven't yet forgotten how to tie up wooden sticks with leather straps and make good reliable slegs. As they did it for ages, they travel on them from village to village, drawn by reindeers or hard working dogs. No other transport is as reliable up there in the North.

Alexander NIKONOV